Of Broken Shields and Cracked Armor
by AlisraSkywall
Summary: A collection of short one-shots, two-shots and possibly continued stories starring Natasha Antoinette Stark, Steve Rogers, Anthony Edward Stark, and a couple of side Clintashas. Only two or three lemons. Don't expect many lemons. Mostly angst, fluff, and stuff like that.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello.**

 **I'm back.**

 **FF decided to delete all of my previous one-shots. So about twenty days of work just went down the drain.**

 **And so here I come, with a new version of my previous, 44-review 194-like 78-follow deleted fanfiction.**

 **THANKS SO MUCH, WEBSITE.**

 **Now you can expect a lot more angst and some repeated use of AU's. Sorry, it's just that I might really like that AU or I read a story slash saw a beautiful, heart-wrenching painting that I needed to slap on paper.**

 **See you!**

 **Prompt: Sorry I was never perfect like you are (Fem! Tony x Steve)**

It was as simple as a matter of who was better.

Anyone who spent more than thirty seconds around them could figure it out. They were complete polar opposites.

Steve was perfect. With lush golden hair, bright blue eyes, kind actions and his gentlemanly way of crookedly smiling at someone that made her heart melt. His self-sacrificing nature, how much he cared for his friends. That adorable cherry-pink blush spreading all the way from his chin to the tip of his crimson-flared ears. With looks and a personality like that, it was no wonder Howard Stark favored him over his biological daughter.

 _He would make a much better CEO than that Toni Stark_ , the wind seemed to whisper. _She's so ugly, and he's so beautiful. Why are they friends?_ the sea seemed to say.

Toni let out a choked laugh, throwing the StarkTab in her hand across the room unconciously. The sunrise outside mocked her, streaking the sky and the bay of Malibu in beautiful crisscrosses of red, orange, and pink. A few lingering traces of dawn fluttered in navy blue wispy bundles of clouds lazily floating across the splash of colour.

She had never felt so useless before.

She could remember what had happened last night. She'd worked herself half-dead, then drunk herself into a blissful oblivion. When she woke up in the hospital, she had been rewarded with Steve's captain-america-is-disappointed-in-you look. And so the moment she arrived home she shut herself in her lab, instructed JARVIS to cut off all access to the lab, delete all override codes except for her own, and proceeded to hack the absolute _hell_ out of national security codes, nuclear codes, SHIELD's protocols, and every damn government-protected, world-saving program she could find because if she didn't she might go insane.

The tower had always been her home. It had supported her, provided her with a place to work herself dead, a place to vent out her troubles. The people staying with her in it had provided her multiple shoulders to cry on, endless arms to sink into. Especially Steve.

Hell, he would comfort the Hulk on a rampage if he could. He was so soft, so warm, so gentle. She was hard, brittle, unbreakable and unreachable. She could never be as wonderful and kind as he was.

She stood, watching the sun make its slow ascend over the valley. As she passed the prototype of Steve's shield, she froze.

 _If you need me..._

"I'll be there."

.

Her chest seized around the arc reactor, sending her into a fit of pain. She gasped, throwing her hands to the blue glow. JARVIS was frantically screaming in the background, she could hear the faint wail of the sirens, the thunderous footsteps of the Avengers as they pounded on the glass, shattering it. But her senses were dulled and she couldn't realize anything but _pain pain pain_

As she looked into terrified ice blue eyes, she finally understood.

"Sorry I was never perfect like you." she whispered, and then everything was black.

 **I'm sorry, today wasn't my best day. I didn't feel like writing. I am typing this in the middle of French class, so words like** _feminine_ **and** _ **Mademoiselle et Monsieur Stark**_ **are circling around in my empty vastness (in my head)**

 **SORRY3**


	2. Chapter 2

**Day 2 of Of Broken Shields and Cracked Armor!**

 **Prompt: The serum isn't always a good thing.**

When Toni dies, Steve doesn't know what to do.

She had been his anchor in this world. She was pretty much the only thing that kept him going.

He sits there like an idiot at her funeral, watching the other Avengers and even Thor give a speech about how amazing she was.

When it's his turn, he stands up and makes his way to the front of the room. He reads off the words from the cue cards Natasha made for him. His voice is utterly blank. Even the few children there can tell he doesn't mean it. He _hasn't_ accepted the fact that she's gone. He _doesn't_ want her to be happy in heaven. He wants to be so completely miserable she gives up and returns to Earth, returns to him, so they can live out their few remaining days together. He wants her to accept the fact that she doesn't belong there, with the dead people.

She still had so long. She still had so much to give to the world.

He still had so many words he wanted to say to her.

Suddenly he is angry. But, surprisingly, when he lowers the cue cards and utters every insult he knows at her, no one looks the least bit shocked.

He storms off the stage and leaves the venue, revs up the motor on his Harley and drives back to the compound.

He considers just how much liquor the serum can hold, and decides not to. He falls asleep with dry eyes.

The next day, he kills Ross.

He doesn't know why. He doesn't know who, or what compels him to do it. He only knows that he has to.

So when he storms into Ross's office and shoots him right in the head, he lets himself be caught.

He breaks out of the Raft. He escapes on a stolen helicopter and retrieves his shield. The world knows that something broke Captain America. And gradually, they figure out that it was their fault.

If only they hadn't taken Toni Stark for granted.

He visits her grave. He laughs, coldly, bitterly. How fitting that even though she was a superhero, it was eventually disease and overuse of her battle-softened body that did her in.

He leaves a bouquet of red dahlias and cypresses. Flowers that mean betrayal. Flowers that mean death.

He leaves.

He travels around the country. Eventually, he catches wind of Banner's death. He attends the funeral in secret. Natasha and Clint see him, and they tell Thor. But they say nothing.

As the years go by, Clint and his wife die. His sons and daughters are far into their sixties. Natasha is in the hospital. She can't even lift her arm anymore.

He visits her. She musters a weak smile.

He's well over a hundred years old now, but he's still twenty-four. He has not aged one bit.

It is, in a way, kind of morbid.

When she dies, he does not go to her funeral. He doesn't know Russian. He pays his respects to all of them in his tiny apartment building.

He is now utterly alone.

Thor comes to Earth one day, a great deal more muscley and wide as he used to be. The shattered fragments of Mjolnir hangs on a necklace around his neck. He gifts it to Steve and leaves.

Another alien superlord comes to take over the planet. Steve kills them all in one blow. But he also killed twenty thousand people. He didn't care.

People everywhere proclaimed him a madman, a monster that should be eradicated. He lets himself sit on the execution table. He requests Toni Stark when they ask him for his last meal.

He gets a piece of chocolate fudge.

He sketches her face, over and over again, on the walls of the cell, with the block of chocolate. Then Banner. Then Clint, his family, Natasha, and Thor.

Then, on the ceiling, stands all of the Avengers, proud and tall, with no wounds and no weaknesses. They shine with glory. They are beautiful.

When the prison guards see him, sitting right on Toni's arc reactor, they let him out of the prison. They are killed for treason two days later.

And so Steve vows to himself that one day, one day he would join the rest of them on that prison ceiling.

And he does.


	3. Update

Hello!

No, unfortunately I haven't died.

I understand I haven't touched any of my stories for a strange amount of time. It's not that I don't have any motivation, it's just that I'll be taking a potentially very long hiatus to write conpletely on Archive of Our Own.

I don't understand why, but I think it's because I find it a lot easier to write on that site. Ideas flow from my mind easier, and to be honest, I've been getting more positive support.

Because I don't choose to talk about my mental health a lot, people often don't know the whole story, and I figured it was about time I told some actual human beings.

I know some people receive help abd support because they pour out their feelings through their work, and while I do love angst, I don't write it full-time.

I prefer to bottle emotions, not let then out.

PMs and DMs are private, but people have said some hurtful things about my work, and I want to remind them that if you don't like it, it's your fault, not mine, and if you hate it so much don't read it!

There is something called Preferred Personal Writing Style, you know. My opinions and how I choose to write shouldn't affect you to the point of calling my work useless trash.

Even if I were as bad at writing as you say, which I could be and maybe I'm just not seeing it, I can still be a great person, even if I'm not the best in the world at writing.

I don't know how you tracked down my Ao3 account, perhaps I told you in a story and forgot, but please don't leave negative comments. It doesn't feel very good.

It feels even worse when you get a bookmark and are excited only to find out the Additional Notes section says ONLY BOOKMARKED BECAUSE I WANTED TO SHOW MY FRIENDS THAT STORIES THIS BAD DO EXIST AFTER ALL.

Things like this are what causes depression.

I have insomnia, and I used to be able to relax because I felt happy that people were giving me such awesome support. Now that's not really happening and even though it's gotten better, lack of sleep is still looming behind me.

And I want to say to user AnonymousForPrivateReasons, what you think about me doesn't matter.

You want me to be more open about my life? Fine. I'll be more open.

I'm a fifteen year old kid with depression, anxiety and PTSD, only recently recovering from insomnia. I live under a constant pressure from so-called "Parents" to be perfect and just stop my mental health problems. I have friends, but I can't trust them with any secrets because oh I so want to, but I don't know whether they'll turn on me and stab me in the back or not.

So, all you internet warriors, don't throw away your shot to actually be a good person. After all, you're just like your comments: young, scrappy abd hungry for drama.

Shoutout to whoever caught the reference.

If you want to check me out, NOT bring me down any further, my Ao3 account name is ninehundredthousandfinalwords and my Wattpad is superchrisevans.

My Instagram is 900000wordslefttosay. NOT ninehundredthousandfinalwords. Someone already took that name.

A pat on the back to anyone who goes through what I'm going through, and to those who hate me for being me, well, if you feel like joining the fight against depression anytime soon, I'm willing to wait for it. *wink*

Bye!

Love,

Lizzy


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